3 out of 4 marketers are using Twitter?  Hmmm…. that seemed really really high to me so I decided to do a bit of research myself.  I belong to an association of 1800 marketing executives based largely in the US.  The association keeps a directory of member twitter accounts which currently numbers 181, or 10% of members. Now it may be that only a few actually bothered to submit their twitter Ids but 10% is not a very high number.

This gave me a sample of at least 181 twitter accounts set up by marketers. I then went through and viewed each and every twitter page to determine if they were actually actively in use. My definition of active was more than 10 updates, with at least one of those updates submitted in the last 21 days.

I learned that only 55% of those twitter accounts were by my definition, active, or in other words, about half of the marketers who “used Twitter” to set up an account, had either never posted to it or had not posted anything for the past 3 weeks.

If the list of twitter accounts in the directory accurately reflects the total twitter accounts held by the group’s membership, then active twitter usage among this group of marketing executives is closer to 5%.

Admittedly “using Twitter” can mean many things. If I have set up a twitter account just to see what it’s all about, am I using Twitter?  If I search for my brand on twitter, am I using Twitter?

If you read Stelzner’s study and started to feel like you were really behind the times, perhaps you can rest more easily.  If only 5% of marketing executives are really using Twitter to actively promote their brands, you have some time.  Time to learn more, time to decide if Twitter is right for you, time to build it into an integrated marketing strategy, time to do it right to get the best return.  BREATHE!